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See also the Cult of Taal, Cult of Taal and Rhya and the Cult of Rhya.


"The cities can have their grand temples, their golden idols and burning incense. All the hustle and bustle of men, praising their great gods. Taal needs none of that. Look around you -- these trees are his temple. The birds are his choir. Out here, those gods are small and far away. But Taal is everywhere."

—Rickard Strauss, Woodsman[8a]
Taal 1st

A depiction of Taal, the god of nature and beasts, his symbol the deer antlers, and a priest of the Cult of Taal.

Taal is the god of nature, beasts, mountains and forests in the Old World Pantheon, one of the older gods of the Human tribesmen that created the Empire. He is a member of the "northern" or "country" family of gods,[1c][4b] husband to Rhya, the Earth Mother, goddess of agriculture, fertility and nature, brother to Ulric, the god of war, winter and wolves, and father to Manann, the god of the sea.[2a]

Having been worshipped since the earliest days of Human occupation of the lands of the Empire, there are many local names for Taal that honoured a particular aspect of him.[3c] Some minor, regional deities are aspects of an official Imperial deity, and thus tolerated by the official cults.[4a] Human fishermen and those living on the river honour him as the god of forests and rivers, Karog, which was possibly the name of an ancient Kislevite deity.[4b][9a]

Hunters and trappers of Talabecland and Middenland meanwhile make sacrifices to Taal as the god of beasts, Karnos.[4b][9a] Karnos is also the Tilean name for Taal, similar to the Elven god Kurnous, also called Karnos, probably due to the Tileans' translations of the ancient scrolls left by the High Elves in their Old World colonies in the southern realm that is now Tilea.[1a][4b] Kharnos could be another name of the deity in the Classical tongue, since this is the name of a constellation[5a] and of a forest in the Border Princes.[6a] Notably, the Wood Elves of Laurelorn know Taal in a feminine aspect as the goddess of rain and rivers called Torothal.[4b]

Many Jade Wizards are devoted to both Taal and Rhya in their original, combined identity of Ishernos.[3c]

Taal is also known as "Father Taal," "God of the Wild," "God of Wild Places and Animals," "King of Nature,"[2a] and "Lord of Nature."[3c] As Karnos he was known as "Lord of Beasts"[9a] or "Lord of the Beasts."[4b] As Karog he was named "God of Rivers"[9a] while in Talabheim, a city founded on river trade where he was the chief god, he is called the "Father of Rivers."[3c] Taal was also called "All-Father,"[10a] and considered the "King of the Gods" by his followers in the Cult of Taal and Rhya, a title disputed by the other cults of the Old World.[2a]

Taal rules nature[1c] and all aspects of nature are under his purview, from the snaking rivers to the tallest mountains, from the smallest insect to the greatest beast.[2a] He is the lord of beasts, forests, and mountains, the power behind gales and downpours, waterfalls and rapids, avalanches and landslides.[3c] He makes the rain fall from the sky, the rivers flow, the animals breed and multiply, and the plants grow. Taal claims the wild places as his domain and makes them develop unchecked by civilisation.[1c]

Taal represents the power and majesty of nature, not only of the physical world of stone and wood, but also the primal urge of life within all creatures. He is not only the physical heart of a person, but also the spark that makes the heart pump. Taal represents vigour and growth in all its forms -- especially the transitions from childhood and adulthood, when life is at its peak. Taal inspires wildness;[1c] the primal fury of the beast is his domain[10a] and he is primarily worshipped by hardy woodsmen, trackers, and rangers.[1c]

History[]

"And then the Cataclysm came.
King Taal rose from His Forest, and with Dark Morr muttering dire portents in His ear, He banished all immortals from the world.
But the Cataclysm's architects refused His order.
The Crow, the Hound, the Serpent, and the Vulture were jealous of King Taal, and had tried to use the Great Gates to take what was His.
They had failed.
As the other immortals fled, the Four attacked, bitter and angry with their frustrations.
Many died.
After countless battles, King Taal was eventually surrounded. There were few still by his side. Ulric the Wolf. Noble Margileo. Just Verena. Sotek the Snake. Manann of the Sea. And Gentle Shallya, tear-stained and afraid.
Even Smiling Ranald had fled, and now hid in the Places Between, fearful for the future.
Then, just as the Four and their allies arrived for the Final Battle, Flaming Phoenix, whom all had thought dead, returned from atop His Gleaming Pyramid, and He smote about Him.
Thus the rebels were pushed behind the Great Gates, and were sealed there forever.
But they were restless in their cage, and soon worked to escape.
"

—Translated from the Obernarn Stone, now held in the Imperial Museum, Altdorf[1b]

Taal is the oldest of all the gods of the Empire. From him came the lands and the rivers, the forests and the mountains, and all the beasts that live among them.[10a] An ancient story told in the Cult of Taal states that Taal was so impressed with the spirit of the first Great Stags that he granted them antlers to match his own.[7a]

When mortals first turned to the gods and prayed to be spared the worst storms, to have bountiful hunts and harvests, and to understand the cycles of the natural world, they formed the Cult of Taal and Rhya, king and queen of nature. In the beginning, the two were worshipped as a single god, Ishernos, who had a feminine face in spring and autumn and a masculine face in summer and winter.[3c]

Over time, winter became the domain of Ulric and the two faces of Ishernos became two separate gods in worshippers' imaginations, yet the cult has remained one. Some theologians speculate that Ulric was once a part of Ishernos as well, forming a triad, which would explain the triskeles etched into the megaliths in Taal and Rhya's oldest stone circles.[3c] Taal's wild warriors dismiss the very idea that Taal and Rhya were once aspects of the same god as foolishness.[10a]

Mythology[]

300px-Taal2

A depiction of Taal, the god of nature and beasts in the Old World Pantheon.

When the mortal world was young, Taal and Rhya fell in love. They were joined beneath the bowers of a great oak tree. From their union came stormy Manann, god of the sea. Neither Taal nor Rhya constrained the other, and the goddess gave birth to many offspring with other gods.[14a]

While the world was still young, it was encased in ice. As the sun grew large, the ice thawed and it seemed the oceans would cover the land. Manann declared himself greater than both his father Taal and wintry Ulric, the god of war, winter and wolves. The Earth Mother heard Manann's proud boasts and determined to teach him a lesson. She raised up the hills and mountains so the waters drained away. Manann repented his folly and his father forgave his youthful ignorance, though even today the Lord of the Oceans gnaws away at the land, seeking to regain his lost domains.[15a]

Once there was a time of famine. The berries and roots had withered and the creatures of Taal eluded even the most skilled hunter's spear. Every stomach was empty and men, women, and children grew weak and died. Rhya sent her handmaidens Rigga and Vidagg to the women of the tribes. They brought sheaves of wheat and docile aurochs, and whispered secrets of taming the wild. But they kept their voices low so that King Taal would not hear.[14a]

A woman, heavy with child, was lost in the woods. Ulric claimed her fate was his to decide, for she was in the domain of his pack. His brother Taal declared that the wild must be free to do as it will. Only Rhya stood in defiance of her consort and his brother. She showed them the she-wolf defending its cubs. She showed them the eagle feeding eaglets in the nest. She showed them that even the serpent warms its new-hatched young. Ulric and Taal softened, bowed to Rhya, and she guided the mother back to her hearth.[14a]

Coming of Chaos[]

Warhammer Gods

Taal (with antlers and axe) fighting the Chaos Gods alongside Rhya, Morr, Verena, and Ulric.

A tome titled Lord Ulric and the Making of the World, kept in the Temple of Ulric in the city of Middenheim as a religious relic despite neither the author nor collator being known, contains a myth mentioning Taal.[13b]

There was a time, when the mortal world was young and Men had just come forth onto the earth, that there was no taint of Chaos upon the land. Father Taal and Mother Rhya tended the things of the land, and their son Manann was master of the things of the sea. Morr was king of the darkness, and Verena the queen of the light, and so all was in balance.[13b]

In the high summers, Lord Ulric, brother of Taal and prince of the snow and ice, had no realm to tend to, so he had taken to walking the earth and the sky and the stars to seek adventure. He travelled far beyond the ken of man or god, fought and slew the greater monsters and Dragons and gave names to all the wonders that he found. With him in many of these journeys came his cousin, Prince Ranald the Trickster, and many are the tales told of these two friends and their brave deeds. But all journeys must end, and this is the tale of their last journey together.[13b]

Ulric and Ranald had journeyed far to the north, farther than any god or man had ever gone before, into the frozen wastes, where the air is so cold it freezes like the water and the earth shatters under one's feet like the first film of ice on the lake, and no man nor Dwarf can survive. And here, at the very top of the world, Ulric and Ranald came upon a crack in the sky. Looking through it, they saw a great horror: it led to the Realm of Chaos. There stood all the beasts and Daemons and Chaos Gods, a great and terrible horde, straining to widen the crack and hungry for conquest of this new world.[13b]

Ulric knew that should this Daemonic army breach the gate, all of this world would be forever destroyed. He called to his brother Ranald to immediately run to tell Father Taal and King Morr of what they had seen, so they might make ready their armies to drive back this horde. Ulric said he would stand at the crack and hold it closed as long as he could. Ranald nodded to his cousin, and ran.[13b]

But the Trickster was a coward, and when he had seen the Chaos hordes he had known only fear. Instead of running to tell his lords and family what had happened, he instead ran and hid. He ran far, far away, to the burning deserts in the south, and buried himself deep under the sand there.[13b]

Ulric waited at the crack, holding it closed with all his might, though on the other side a million Daemons clawed and grabbed at it, desperate to tear it further and gain their entry. Ulric stood and held the gate for a thousand years and one, his muscles ever-straining with the effort, waiting for his cousin to return. But Ranald never came. Enraged at his cousin's cowardice, Ulric swore never to speak to Ranald again, nor ever to suffer a trickster to travel with him, for all that trusted in tricks were nought but cowards, weaklings and deceivers.[13b]

Finally, Ulric's strength began to wane, and he knew his weakling cousin had not delivered the message. He knew too, that he could not hold the gate closed much longer. So despite his fears, he was forced to let go and bear the terrible news to his family himself. But when he arrived to do so, he found himself ignored and discounted.[13b]

His brother Taal did not believe that there could be another world beyond his, and Manann had no care for things of the land. Great King Morr believed Ulric's story, but did not see a great danger -- certainly it was nothing Ulric himself could not handle. Ulric despaired, knowing that even now the Chaos hordes must be pouring into their world, led by their own great and hideous gods, ready to destroy all they had made.[13b]

Finally, he appealed to Queen Verena, and in her wisdom, she saw that the danger was indeed very real and very great, and that these fiends would destroy all of the Beauty and Reason she had created. She swore that even if her husband would not act, she would, and she took up her husband's sword and rode out to battle with brave Lord Ulric. And to this day, Verena still carries that sword, as a reminder to Morr and to all her subjects that wisdom must be joined with action, lest all wisdom be lost.[13b]

Shamed into action by his queen, Morr rallied all the gods behind him, and all their loyal followers, and rode out to meet the Chaos Gods and their Daemonic armies. Morr was no great warrior, and Ulric had proven his wisdom in seeing the danger, so Morr gave over to Ulric command of all the gods' forces, and Ulric thence became the god of battle. Wearing his great helm and swinging his massive warhammer, Ulric led the gods forth to meet their enemy.[13b]

And where the hoof beats of their horses fell, they cut a trail of mud far deep into the earth, and the sea rushed in to fill it up, and became the great River Reik. All the while, the Chaos Daemons ran on their claws of fire and blood, so sharp that they bit into the very land itself, which is why the coast of Norsca is now so ragged and torn.[13b]

The two forces met with uncontained fury. The Chaos force was uncountable in number, unending in hunger, unimaginable in savagery. Yet Ulric's courage never faltered. His fury would not abate, and his strength never wavered. He smashed the Chaos ranks with his great warhammer, breaking every charge that came.[13b]

Behind him rode King Morr, bringing the darkness of death, and Queen Verena with her sword of light, and Father Taal with the fury of the lion, and Mother Rhya with the strength of the mother bear, and Manaan brought the sea forth into the field, dragging thousands of Daemons down into his realm where he could choke the life out of them. Still the Daemons and Chaos beasts came on, still the Gods of Light fought back. The battle raged for a thousand years, until at last all the armies of Chaos were routed.[13b]

A Brother's Gift[]

When the mortal world was young, the brothers Taal and Ulric were the most powerful of the gods, and both were widely worshipped. Yet Ulric was troubled, for it seemed that his older brother came before him in all things. To Taal he voiced his concern, who then asked what would make him content, and Ulric replied that he desired a place, a realm that he could truly say belonged to him alone. Taal considered this and decided to grant his younger brother's request.[12b]

Taal gave to Ulric a vast rock, surrounded on all sides by harsh forests filled with beasts,[12b] a great mountain that rose up out of the forests like a spear.[3d] Ulric was well pleased with the gift. Thanking his brother for his kindness, he struck the rock with his fist, smashing the top away and leaving a plateau a mile across, later called the Ulricsberg by Men[12b] although in some versions of the myth it is Taal himself who does this.[12a]

Tenets[]

Taal is a god of action rather than contemplation,[10a] known for his volatile nature and urge to hunt.[2a] Like nature itself however, Taal is often viewed as indifferent to mortals, as unmoved by their concerns as a mountain or storm,[3c] although unlike his son Mannan, god of the sea, there is seemingly no pleasure taken in this indifference.[3b] Those who come into his domain are expected to show the proper respect.[11a]

Relationships[]

Between himself and his wife Rhya, goddess of agriculture, Taal is generally seen as the less merciful and gentle of the pair, and so she is often asked to intercede in and calm his rages, cooling his wrath and ameliorating his stubbornness.[4b][8a] They are the parents of Manann, the god of the sea,[3b] and countless nature spirits of forest, meadow, and valley.[14a]

Both Taal and Rhya have had children with other gods in the Old World's mythology. She is both his consort and equal, and their relationship remains harmonious even as neither is strictly monogamous.[14a] As a good wife, Rhya is beholden to his will, so oftentimes frost kills the lambs or floods take the crops,[8a] but in legend she is known to keep secrets from him or outright stand in defiance of him until he relents.[14a]

Taal has an ally in his brother Ulric as a fellow god of nature and the north, and there exist many shrines dedicated to both of them as the gods of the four seasons.[12c] By the autumn equinox celebration of "Less Growth," Taal and Rhya are said to hand their power over the land to him,[1d][3a] and by the winter equinox, also called "World Still," bonfires are lit in hopes of guiding Taal and Rhya back into the world.[1d][3a] During Sigmar's time the people of the lands that would become the Empire waited for Ulric to return to his frozen realm in the heavens, and for Taal to bring balance to the world in the spring.[16a]

According to an Asur myth brought by way of Markus Fischer, a Magister of the Grey Order,[2b] Taal was the son of the Elven creator god Asuryan, and was temporarily the King of the Gods during the Great Catastrophe. Asuryan had been struck down by Khorne, but would revive by the conflict's end to drive back the weakened hordes of Chaos just as all seemed lost.[1b]

Appearance and Symbology[]

In the art and stories of the Old World, Taal is normally portrayed as a powerfully built, virile man with the skull of a Great Stag and long, wild hair crowned with a massive rack of spreading antlers. Golden leaves flutter from his beard and he wears animal skins.[2a][3c] In some tales, he manifests as one of his totems: a stag, bison, or bear.[3c][11a] He sometimes appeared as his sacred beast, the Great Stag, to manifest his fierce wrath against Greenskins, Beastmen, bandits, and other malefactors of the forest.[7a]

Taal's holy symbols include antlers, deer skulls, oaks, and a stone axe.[1c][2a] His deer skull and antlers symbols were used in his aspect as Lord of Beasts while the stone axe aligned with his weather god aspect, since he was said to use a stone axe to cause thunder, lightning, and avalanches by striking mountaintops.[11a] When together with Rhya they were instead symbolized with the Coil of Life, a spiral representing nature's annual turn from birth to maturity to death to rebirth.[3c]

Omens of Taal[]

Visions from Taal often show the natural world at its most angry: trees twisted in strange ways or growing faces and eating travellers, or feral animals rampaging across the land. Sometimes Taal shows the wild world affected in strange ways: wild animals on the hunt for unnatural prey or Human babies, or man-made objects infringing on Taal's domain, such as clockwork animals or metal trees.[12c]

The nightingale singing at midday, the lark at midnight, other odd behaviour by small animals, or plants springing up in the wrong place or wrong season are some of the minor natural occurrences that can show a Taalite that all is not what it seems.[12c]

Sources[]

  • 1: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: Tome of Salvation (RPG)
    • 1a: pp. 11-12
    • 1b: pp. 20, 22
    • 1c: pp. 61-66
    • 1d: pp. 144-145
  • 2: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition: Core Rulebook (RPG)
    • 2a: pg. 212
  • 3: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: Rulebook (RPG)
    • 3a: pp. 172-174
    • 3b: pg. 176
    • 3c: pg. 179
    • 3d: pg. 215
  • 4: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: Sigmar's Heirs - A Guide to the Empire (RPG)
    • 4a: pp. 33-34
    • 4b: pp. 39-40, 42
  • 5: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition: Archives of the Empire Vol. II (RPG)
    • 5a: pg. 45
  • 6: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition: Dwarfs - Stone and Steel (RPG)
    • 6a: pg. 35
  • 7: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition: The Imperial Zoo (RPG)
    • 7a: pg. 10
  • 8: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition: Tome of Blessings (RPG)
    • 8a: pp. 15-16
  • 9: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition: The Enemy Within (RPG)
    • 9a: pg. 23
  • 10: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition: Tome of Blessings (RPG)
  • 11: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition: Core Rulebook (RPG)
  • 12: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition: Signs of Faith (RPG)
  • 13: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: Children of the Horned Rat - A Guide to Skaven (RPG)
  • 14: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition: Archives of The Empire III (RPG)
  • 15: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition: Sea of Claws (RPG)
  • 16: Heldenhammer (Novel) by Graham McNeill
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